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That will mean that those who are in the most intense caring roles who, as Pam Duncan-Glancy understandably emphasised, tend to be on lower incomes, will receive up to £694.20 more than the equivalent carer south of the border, so we are already stepping up and making that additional difference. I do not know whether you have any further supplementary questions on that.

As you will know, I was Minister for Public Finance and Migration during the pandemic. Rightly, considerations to do with the council tax reduction scheme regularly crossed my desk and, of course, measures were taken to assist with that.

The council tax reduction scheme reduces tax liability based on an assessment of household income, household composition, household characteristics and other factors, as you rightly highlighted. Carers can get a carers premium added to the calculation, potentially meaning that they will get a greater council tax reduction and pay less council tax. The majority of households that get a carers premium in council tax reduction are already on 100 per cent council tax reduction, or close to it, and analysis shows that, in practice, increasing the level of carers premium in council tax reduction would not have a big impact on carers generally. We continue to consider across Government what support we can give to carers.

On the point about data, we have to work with the DWP on these matters because of the considerations around passporting and ensuring that nobody’s entitlement is affected as an unintended consequence of our actions. We continue to consider what data is available but, as matters stand, we have to co-ordinate with the DWP when it comes to the payment mechanism and operating within the law.

That is another important question. I record my thanks to SCOSS for all the work that it does and, in particular, for all the work that it has done in recent months.

I presume that Mr Choudhury is referring to the enabling power in the bill.

Just for clarity, I point out that, as members will know, it is normal procedure to wait for two months after a bill receives royal assent to commence the provisions in it. However, given the need to ensure that the provisions in section 1 are in force in time for the December payment, we have instead proposed that sections 1, 3 and 4 will come into force on the day after royal assent, which is as quickly as possible. As the same urgency does not apply to the enabling power in section 2, we intend to commence that in the normal way. That is the only reason for the difference in commencement.

For clarity, do you mean a reporting duty on the development of Scottish carers assistance? Could you be more specific?

As members will be aware, the Scottish Government updates Parliament as appropriate, and as Parliament would rightly expect, on the delivery programme for Social Security Scotland. In relation to progress towards Scottish carers assistance, we have developed our overall aims and options for improvement. As the committee will be interested to know, we are currently discussing those with carers organisations and engaging with stakeholders to carry out a detailed options analysis on what Scottish carers assistance could and should include, and we will consult on proposals in winter 2021-22. That work is progressing at pace and we will keep the committee updated as appropriate.

There are more conversations and discussions to be had. Officials have good working relationships with their counterparts in the DWP, and we are grateful to DWP officials for working with our officials in Social Security Scotland and the Scottish Government to deliver for the people of Scotland and to bring our new benefits programme forward in a responsible and effective way.

Of course, Scottish ministers will raise these matters with UK ministers, too. In fact, we will be meeting UK ministers shortly to discuss all these points with them and to get clarity on the issue of passporting, not just with regard to Scottish carers assistance but more generally. We want to ensure that we are all clear on what the position will be, and we will be happy to engage with the committee again on those points in due course.

I would be grateful, convener, if I could bring in Kate Thomson-McDermott, who may wish to say more about that.

The passporting considerations that you have highlighted are some of the main barriers. We should be mindful that a key aspect of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 was that carers allowance supplement was a temporary measure to provide assistance as quickly as we could while we continued to build up and deliver Scottish carers assistance. The fact that, at £67.60 a week, carers allowance is the lowest of all working-age benefits was part of our considerations around that and why we wanted to act.

Under the overlapping benefits rule, carers with an underlying entitlement will typically be in receipt of benefits that are paid at a higher rate. Carers can be in receipt of both the carers element of universal credit and carers allowance and, therefore, the carers allowance supplement. There is a helpful element there in extending eligibility for the coronavirus carers allowance supplement, which was what we did last year under the coronavirus legislation.

To include carers with underlying entitlement would have required significant resources from Social Security Scotland and social security staff in the Scottish Government, and engagement with the DWP to develop new processes. That is a real challenge and remains so, so it would have taken longer to deliver the payment and it would have needed to be supported by the DWP.

That is why the priority for Social Security Scotland was to make sure that people continued to apply for and receive existing benefits. Extending eligibility for existing benefits would have put additional pressure on those services when they were needed most, which is why we decided to make an additional payment through the carers allowance supplement to get the resource to people as quickly and expediently as possible.

We committed to the carers allowance supplement in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, so that is guaranteed every year and has been since 2018, when it was the first devolved benefit to be introduced. The additional amount, which we paid in 2020 and are seeking, through the bill, to pay again in December in the budgetary year 2021-22, will be guaranteed if the bill is passed.

We are creating the enabling power for that to be able to happen next year, should that be the will of the Parliament, but I do not think that it is prudent or correct, at this point, to set a position for future years. Of course, we will introduce Scottish carers assistance. Collectively, we will make decisions on what that will include and how it will be set.

We are creating an enabling power that will mean that, should there be a requirement and a desire from the Parliament to make a payment again in the next financial year, we have the mechanism to enable us to do that. There will, of course, be questions around resource and adequacy in our collective considerations around Scottish carers assistance.

Our analysis is based on our ability to deliver a payment and on the feedback that we had on the difference that it made last year, as well as on our engagement with stakeholders and carers organisations. We were told how much of an impact the payment made during the pandemic.

I appreciate the wider concerns about carers assistance and the level of provision for carers more generally. That is an important question for all of us as we work towards the introduction of Scottish carers assistance. However, we can feasibly deliver the supplement, both in practical terms through the mechanisms of Social Security Scotland, and within the budget that has already been set for this financial year. We have secured the resource that is necessary to make the payment.

I know that there are pressures on carers and family budgets. That is why the Government is taking a range of measures and actions to assist communities and families across Scotland with those pressures. The proposed payment is an important further contribution to support carers at this time, but I appreciate that some people will still face pressures on their finances. We are very aware of that.